International Human Rights in Historical Perspective

Stanley Katz will explore the history of the involvement of the United States in the international human rights system as it emerged following World War II. Faced with the apparent recalcitrance of the United States in the face of a growing international acceptance of the emerging system of human rights, the historian's challenge is to analyze the reasons for U.S. hesitancy and inconsistency, while simultaneously evaluating the reality of a fragmented and sometimes illusory 'system' of international human rights.

Stanley N. Katz is the director of the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at Princeton University. A past President of the American Council on Learned Societies, he is Editor-in-Chief of the recently published Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History. He is also the Editor of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History of the Supreme Court of the United States.

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